Lawyer Tells Us Why Trump's Immunity Ruling Won't Affect His Hush Money Case Sentencing

Donald Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts in his New York hush money case at the end of May 2024. Trump has not yet been sentenced for the crimes; however, it would be a logistical nightmare if Trump was sentenced to prison and also got re-elected. But his criminal troubles don't end there. Trump is still a defendant in three additional criminal trials, including federal charges of election interference in connection with Trump's actions on January 6, 2021.

On July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled on presidential immunity. Trump and his lawyers had argued that as president, Trump should have immunity from prosecution. The Supreme Court agreed with that — to a point. The Supreme Court's ruling, in essence, said that presidents could not be prosecuted for actions done in an "official" capacity, said immunity did not include "unofficial acts." They then sent the case back to the lower court in the District of Columbia.The List spoke exclusively with former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers Neama Rahmani to find out what the Supreme Court ruling means for Trump. "None of this will affect the hush money case and sentencing because that happened before Trump was president," Rahmani said. But the SCOTUS decision does have big implications for Trump's election interference case.

For Rahmani, the ruling, "was expected, and precisely along ideological lines." It was decided 6-3 with the conservative majority ruling in favor and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson in dissent.

"The justices were never going to give [Donald] Trump absolute immunity like he asked for," Neama Rahmani explained to The List, "but it was clear from the question presented when they accepted the case and the oral arguments that the Supreme Court was going to allow some immunity for official acts, even for former presidents."

Rahmani outlined how the ruling was good news for Trump. "They gave Trump a huge win — not substantively, because I think Judge Chutkan [in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia] will decide that Trump's actions were personal and not official, but procedurally because the additional delay will push his criminal cases past the November election." Considering the tight polling after Biden's shaky debate performance, there is strong potential that there will be a second Trump presidency. That would shut the case down. "Trump is likely to be president in 2025," Rahmani told us, "and a sitting president can't be prosecuted."

Trump is celebrating the decision. Although he seems to think it should signal an end to all the cases against him. On Truth Social, he wrote, "Today's Historic Decision by the Supreme Court should end all of Crooked Joe Biden's Witch Hunts against me, including the New York Hoaxes — The Manhattan SCAM cooked up by Soros backed D.A., Alvin Bragg, Racist New York Attorney General Tish James' shameless ATTACK on the amazing business that I have built, and the FAKE Bergdorf's 'case.'"